What is the day of Pentecost?
Fifty days after the Passover sheaf was waved, Israel kept a harvest festival — and on that very day, in the year Jesus rose, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven. Acts 2:1 places the birth of the church on a date God had marked out in the Jewish calendar centuries before.
The Name and the Date
Pentecost is not originally a Christian word. It is a Greek number, and the feast it names was already fixed in Israel's law under a different title.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThis name, which means "fiftieth," is found only in the New Testament. It corresponds to the FEAST OF WEEKS. From the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits fifty days were counted, and on the day after the seven sabbaths the feast was kept. A new grain offering of two loaves baked with leaven was offered; also seven lambs, one bull, and two rams for a burnt offering... It was proclaimed a holy gathering, in which no ordinary work was to be done.
The wording in Acts 2:1 carries the sense of a date arriving at last, not merely a date on a page.
Arend RemmersIf we take the Greek exactly, Acts 2 verse 1 says, "And when the feast of the fiftieth was fulfilled" — the fifty days mentioned here, seven weeks plus one day, the day of Pentecost. Pentecost is simply the Greek word for "fifty." ...when we go to the New Testament and ask what the meaning was, what happened on this day of Pentecost, we see that it was the foundation day of the assembly.
Counting the Fifty Days
The arithmetic connects three events: the resurrection, the ascension, and the coming of the Spirit.
A. J. PollockThe wave sheaf sets forth Christ in resurrection... Our Lord was forty days on this earth after resurrection, proving to His disciples — "foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe" — that He was indeed risen from the dead... Then the disciples were told to remain at Jerusalem until the promise of the Father should be fulfilled in the gift of the Holy Spirit. They assembled in an upper room until the day of Pentecost was fully come. Now the word Pentecost means the fiftieth day. So the disciples waited in Jerusalem ten days after the ascension, which was fifty days after the resurrection.
What Began That Day
The Spirit's coming was both personal and corporate — and something existed afterwards that had not existed before.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinHe came upon the assembled believers individually, and also did a work in a corporate way. Each believer on that day was filled with the Holy Spirit... But He also was present as the mighty rushing wind which filled all the house. He did not only come upon each, but all were baptized with the Holy Spirit, and united into a body... All believers were on that day united by the Spirit into the one body, and since then, whenever and wherever a sinner believes in the finished work of Christ, he shares in that baptism and is joined by the same Spirit to that one body. A believer may be in dense ignorance about all this, as indeed a great many are; but this does not alter the gracious fact of what God has done... It was the birthday of the church.
Two Loaves, Baked with Leaven
The offering at this feast was unusual. Unlike the pure sheaf waved earlier, these loaves contained leaven — a detail commentators read as pointing to what the church is actually made of.
Samuel RidoutIn the two loaves which were waved before the Lord, baked with leaven, we have a marked suggestion of the presentation of the Church to God, composed of Jew and Gentile, in both of whom indeed is the leaven of the old nature, but who are presented to God not in themselves, but in connection with that perfect sacrifice which is typified in the seven lambs, one bull, and two rams which are offered as a burnt offering to God, and the sin offering of the goat, together with the peace offering.
Many Languages, One Message
The disciples spoke in real languages they had never learned. That miracle said something about who the message was now for.
William KellyThe languages were as real as they were different from their mother tongue or any naturally acquired one... What could be so clear a testimony that, if God gave His law to Israel, though in itself the expression of man's moral duty, He was now about to make known His grace in the gospel to every race and tongue?... It was not the wiping out of differences in language... but grace lifting its objects and instruments above the effects of that judgment at Babel, which by diversity of language confounded the pride of the race.
The Harvest of That Day
The same feast day is linked with the giving of the law at Sinai, and the two occasions ended very differently.
H. J. VineWhen the law of holy demand was given, three thousand were slain! When the Spirit was given at Pentecost for the preaching of free grace, three thousand were saved!
Summary
- Fiftieth — Pentecost simply means "fifty": the fiftieth day counted from the waving of the firstfruits sheaf, known in the Old Testament as the Feast of Weeks.
- Fulfilled — Christ rose on the day the sheaf was waved, stayed forty days, ascended, and the Spirit came ten days later; the calendar kept its own appointment.
- Formed — The Spirit came on each believer individually and baptized them all into one body; that day was the birthday of the church.
- Full — The two loaves were baked with leaven and carried a sin offering: the church is Jew and Gentile, still with the old nature, accepted through the sacrifice, not in itself.
- Far — Many languages from Galilean lips reversed the scattering of Babel, and three thousand were saved where the law had once left three thousand slain.